‘Do whatever you think works,’ Ívar replied. ‘I just want a decent story.’
Ísrún nodded. ‘Before I forget, I was going to do a short piece about this virus that’s hit Siglufjördur for our in-depth feature later this week. Is that OK?’ she asked, again directing her question at María.
‘Sounds good,’ María said and smiled.
Ísrún enjoyed María’s approval, and the look of envy on Ívar’s face was enough to give her a warm feeling inside.
12
It had been a quiet night.
There had been time for Ari Thór to look through the folder of material Hédinn had brought, but when he felt his eyelids growing heavy, he decided to go home to sleep. He was due back at the police station later in the day.
As he walked back into the station, Tómas greeted him cheerfully. ‘Welcome back, my boy,’ he said, although his good humour seemed rather forced. ‘I collected the documents you wanted,’ he added, as if he were humouring a wayward child.
‘Documents?’ Ari Thór asked in surprise.
‘That’s right. The old police reports on the fatality in Hédinsfjördur.’
‘Thank you. That’s good of you.’
‘It’s in a folder on your desk. And I was going to tell you about … tell you about Sandra.’
‘Sandra?’ he asked, wondering if anything had happened to the old lady. He had met her twice during the investigation into the death of an elderly author in Siglufjördur two years previously; she had been both friendly and helpful.
After the case was closed, he’d continued to visit her regularly at the old people’s home; he’d gone there at least once a month, and they had formed a strong friendship. Ari Thór had no immediate family of his own, so in a way old Sandra had filled a gap for him with her warmth and kindness. Visits to her were like taking a trip back to a past age, back when things weren’t so damned complicated.
‘She’s been taken to hospital,’ Tómas said.
‘Hospital?’ Ari Thór repeated, startled. ‘Did she catch …?’
He could hardly dare think it through. He knew Sandra wasn’t going to live for ever, but he wasn’t ready to lose someone close, not yet.
‘They’re saying it’s extremely unlikely,’ Tómas replied. ‘Just a normal flu, probably.’
‘I spoke to that journalist last night,’ Ari Thór said, anxious to change the subject. He didn’t want to talk about Sandra’s condition, it was better to pretend that she was OK. ‘Ísrún. She wants to interview me about the situation here. Is that all right?’
‘Up to you, my boy,’ Tómas said, to Ari Thór’s astonishment. Normally Tómas preferred to avoid the limelight and was always abrupt in his dealings with the media.
Ari Thór was surprised that he hadn’t heard from Ísrún all day. Hadn’t she said she’d call him? Maybe she had decided against the interview after all. It would be a shame if she had; it would have been nice to be able to call Kristín and tell her that he would be interviewed on television – even though it would only be on the telephone.
Kristín had called him that morning: ‘I heard about the nurse who died,’ she’d said. ‘It’s terrible, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it really is.’
‘Are you … are you scared?’
He had lied: ‘No, not really. It isn’t as bad as the media wants you to think, you know. It’s easy to take the necessary precautions.’
‘All the same, make sure you stay indoors as much as possible.’
‘It doesn’t matter much if I stay indoors or not,’ he had replied. ‘There’s hardly a soul to be seen anywhere.’
Taking a seat at his desk, now, he started reading through the old police files Tómas had dug out for him. The short, factual sentences gave him no new ideas about the case, however. Jórunn had died on a March evening in 1957, having consumed rat poison mixed into her coffee. The weather was as bad as it could get that night and when her symptoms began to manifest themselves – in the bleeding typical of rat poison – there was no way to call a doctor. Everyone in the household had confirmed that there was rat poison in the house and that it had been kept in the kitchen in a jar that wasn’t dissimilar to the sugar jar. By the time the police and the doctor arrived the following day Jórunn was already dead. She had told her family that she had stirred the poison into her coffee by mistake. At least, everyone’s testimony agreed on that point.
Ari Thór practically flung the report away when he had finished it, hardly believing a word he had read, although he had no doubt that what was recorded was the information the police had received. He doubted its reliability, though. This was a far too easy and convenient conclusion to a difficult case. But he realised it must have been difficult for the police to deal with the lies, when nobody seemed to have been prepared to rock the boat, and all three witnesses had the same story to tell.
He was sure that the most interesting part of the report was the things that were missing from it. It was possible to work out that, on that evening of the death, there had been nobody there but Jórunn and Maríus, Gudmundur and Gudfinna, and of course their son Hédinn, who was then ten months old. The young man in the photograph seemed to have vanished – there was no mention of him at all.
After a brief search, Ari Thór found a number for the chairman of the Siglufjördur Association in Reykjavík. One phone call later, he was speaking to the man who had organised the picture evening. He introduced himself, but not as a police officer – rather, as someone with an interest in a certain picture. The man didn’t seem surprised and asked which photograph.
‘It’s a group photo taken in Hédinsfjördur,’ Ari Thór explained. ‘Two women, one—’ he began, but was immediately interrupted.
‘Yes, yes. I remember it well. We don’t see all that many pictures from Hédinsfjördur. It was a picture of Gudmundur and Gudfinna from Siglufjördur. They moved back to the town after they gave up trying to farm in Hédinsfjördur. That was right after the fatality there, if I recall correctly,’ the man said, dropping his voice at the mention of a death.
Ari Thór waited for him to continue.
‘Are you related to them?’ the man asked.
‘No, but I know their son. I was wondering where the picture came from?’
‘So you know Hédinn?’ the man asked, but didn’t wait for a reply. ‘He’s a good sort.’
‘They were a respectable couple, weren’t they?’ Ari Thór said. ‘Gudmundur and Gudfinna, I mean.’
‘Well, yes. Gudmundur wasn’t someone everyone got on with. Nobody was keen on being at loggerheads with him. But he did well for himself. He started in the fishing business as a young man and he ran a company as well. Put it this way: he was well off enough to afford to make a mistake with that Hédinsfjördur adventure. Although it was an expensive way to put a foot wrong, I reckon. There must have been some ideas about the charm of isolation, the attraction of a deserted fjord, that kind of thing. Nobody has lived in Hédinsfjördur since.’
‘And his wife?’
‘She was from Reykjavík. Both of them were – she and her sister. The sister’s the one who died. I can’t recall her name …’
‘Jórunn,’ Ari Thór said.
‘Exactly. Jórunn. I recall that her husband’s name was Maríus and the picture came from him. I gather the sisters were much alike; and weren’t too fond of that narrow, dark fjord. It’s not a way of life that suits everyone. She drank poison, Jórunn did.’
‘Is that certain?’ Ari Thór asked.
‘Well … as far as I remember – and I am getting on, you know – that was the explanation given at the time. I don’t think there was much doubt about it. You can imagine how hard the winter must have been in a place like that, with no electricity. There had never been electricity there, in fact; no phone either. It was hard enough in Siglufjördur; I moved south a good while ago, so as to be closer to my family,’ he said with regret in his voice.
‘You said that the picture came from Marí
us; but isn’t he dead?’ Ari Thór asked.
‘He is. Two years ago. His brother took a while to go through everything. Last winter he got in touch; or rather a nurse at the old people’s home he’s in these days got in touch with us. She said that Maríus had left his brother two boxes of old photographs from the town, and the brother wanted to donate them to us. We included them in our collection and showed some of them at the picture evening the other day. You’d be amazed at how many people in these old photos can be identified,’ he added, happily.
‘Do you have Maríus’s brother’s phone number?’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t. But I know what the home is called; you can try and get through to them.’ There was a pause, and then he read out the name of the old people’s home. ‘I think he’s past ninety, the old fellow. His name’s Nikulás Knutsson.’
13
The psychiatrist had done his best to help Emil.
‘Emil. Tell me how you feel,’ he’d said.
No response.
‘Write it down, Emil, if that’s easier for you,’ he had said with paternal warmth in his voice.
Nothing.
It was as if he had been switched off. He neither wanted to speak nor could; at least, not about her.
Emil was twenty-seven years old. Born and raised in Kópavogur, he had left home when his application for a student apartment had been granted. Good with computers, it hadn’t taken him long to decide that business studies was what he wanted to focus his energies on. He completed the course without any problems and then decided to take a break from studying after those three years; a BSc degree would do for the time being, he thought. He’d accepted a good offer from one of the large banks and was still employed by them, in theory. Right now, though, he was on a period of sick leave to which he could see no end.
Some of his colleagues had set up in business on their own accounts, using the skills they had acquired to establish their own new companies, but that was never a temptation for Emil. He didn’t have the same energy, the pioneering spirit that such a venture demanded.
Once his studies had come to an end, he’d bought a small apartment in Reykjavík; his parents had helped him scratch together the down payment and he’d taken out a mortgage for the rest. It was a year later that he met Bylgja.
She worked for the same bank as he did, and had been a year behind Emil in university. He’d noticed her at the university, but their paths had never really crossed. When they finally met at a staff party at work, they got on wonderfully. It seemed like only moments later that she was moving into his apartment. They were more than just lovers; they were partners and soulmates, spending every possible moment together and laying plans for the future.
And then she was gone, as if she had disappeared into the evening gloom.
It happened between a hasty dinner and sleep that never came that night; between the tattered old Ikea sofa and the replacement they had meant to buy; between his proposal on one knee and the wedding that never happened.
There had been overtime at the bank that night. In hindsight – and he’d had no shortage of that as he ran the same thoughts back and forth in his mind over and over again – the work could have waited. For a young man with a future ahead of him, he’d thought it was worth working overtime – being the last one to leave. Bylgja had been no less ambitious, but that evening she had been at home. She had been thinking of going back to university to continue her studies later that year and that night she was working through the reading list, months before the course was due to start. This fact had got her killed.
He was back living with his parents again. He had no interest in continuing payments on the apartment, although he knew his parents would see to them. They’d get him back on an even keel. They could hardly expect him to move back there, but at least it was something that could be sold to avoid bankruptcy on top of all his other troubles.
He’d stop seeing the psychiatrist. It wasn’t helping. Emil told the man he no longer needed his assistance, although that was stretching the point.
He didn’t talk much with other people, either – not even his parents. In the old days he had been more open.
But so much had changed. Now he only thought of revenge.
14
Ísrún sat, exhausted, in the newsroom, watching the evening bulletin on the big screen with her colleagues.
It was their habit to watch the news together at the end of the day, ready to answer the phone to anyone who felt like complaining – there were normally a few such calls every night – and then have a short conference to go over the day’s events.
The first item on the evening news had been hers. There was a suspicion that Snorri Ellertsson had been run over deliberately, according to her police source.
There had been no way to keep Snorri’s name out of the piece; María had taken the decision that the deceased’s name was news in itself, as they were looking at a possible murder and the victim was both the son of a respected political figure and a one-time close friend of the current Prime Minister. María had justified releasing his name by saying that there could be a political opponent behind the attack who wanted to harm the government, or even Ellert in person.
Ísrún had not gone so far as to repeat this wild conjecture in her report. On the other hand, her source had given her no other reason exactly why the police were not treating the incident as accidental. Ísrún had been sure to contact the police and visit the scene with a cameraman. There hadn’t been much to see, but they had to have some kind of footage for the evening bulletin. She had decided to show the family some consideration and called neither Snorri’s parents nor his sister. She also preferred to leave the Prime Minister out of this for the time being. She knew Marteinn slightly, as did most journalists, and she was planning to see if she could talk to him either before or after the next day’s cabinet meeting.
After all of the day’s frenetic activity, she realised, with uncomfortable sudden-ness, that she had completely forgotten to call the police officer up north to follow up on the virus story. There probably wasn’t much happening, and the story might be about to dry up. But there was always interest in a something as dramatic as this, and a good journalist would simply make an effort to find a new angle every day. It was practically unforgivable to have forgotten about it.
She stepped into a meeting room and called the Siglufjördur police station using her battered old mobile. There wasn’t enough in the expenses pot to ensure that the news team had the latest phones.
‘Police,’ a sharp voice answered after a few rings.
Ísrún recognised it. ‘Hello, Ari Thór, it’s Ísrún,’ she said. ‘From the news desk,’ she added after a moment’s awkward silence.
‘Yes, I know,’ he rasped. ‘What happened with that interview? I got clearance for it.’
‘Thanks, that’s great. It …’ She hesitated before forging ahead, deciding – not for the first time – that a white lie was better than the truth. ‘It didn’t work out today …’ Didn’t work out – that sounded better than admitting she had forgotten.
‘So it’s not going to happen?’
‘Sure it will. But I’ll have to give you a call tomorrow, if that’s alright? My shift’s almost over now, and we need time to set up the recording.’
‘No problem,’ Ari Thór assured her in a more amiable tone of voice.
‘But while I have you on the line, what’s the situation at the moment? You haven’t been infected?’ she asked, taking a ballpoint from her pocket and reaching for a sheet of paper from the meeting-room table. If there was anything new, she could pass it on to her colleague on the late shift.
‘No, nothing like that. I’m taking care,’ he said. ‘The only person I see at the moment is my inspector.’
‘Fine. I hope you’re still there in the morning.’
‘I reckon so.’
Ísrún hoped that his answers wouldn’t be so short in the next day’s interview. She decided to push the c
onversation forward to see if she could gather any useful points she could expand on with him the next day. But she knew she had to be careful. More than once she had been caught out with a promising conversation before recording started, only to see the interview fall to pieces as the person being filmed hesitated and stammered. Sometimes it was as if people had no idea how to repeat what they had just said moments before when chatting off-camera.
‘So what do the police mainly do in such a small place?’ she asked.
‘Not a lot.’
‘What sort of thing do you have on your plate at the moment?’
He was quiet for a moment. ‘I’m killing some time right now by going through old files.’
‘Old files?’ she asked with no real enthusiasm. ‘Anything exciting?’
‘I’m looking for a solution to something that happened over fifty years ago: the death of a young woman in Hédinsfjördur,’ he said and his voice became more serious. ‘This is between ourselves, isn’t it? This is an old case that needn’t find its way into the news.’
‘It’s not news unless you crack the case,’ Ísrún said, finding that she was curious about it after all. ‘Call me first, if you do, won’t you?’
‘Well … yes. But I don’t expect anything like that. I don’t imagine that I’ll find out what really happened, or that there’ll be much call to bring it to the media,’ he said softly.
‘Old cases like that are always popular. People love to see justice finally done, that kind of thing. You know what I mean?’
‘Yeah, I know,’ Ari Thór mumbled.
‘We can do a programme about it if you solve the mystery,’ she said, making an effort to appeal to his sense of vanity, but not expecting to keep her promise.
‘That might be interesting,’ Ari Thór said.
The bait had been taken. Now she just had to reel him in.
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